2015’s version of skateboard literature’s longest running summer wrap-up is here: Dubai or Not Dubai – Frozen in Carbonite’s S.O.T.S. x P.O.T.S. post. “Indeed, using the most powerful communication medium of our time—Instagram—as a yardstick, following the most popular thirst trap accounts down an Instagram wormhole leads to a dark place where every comment is either in a foreign alphabet or ‘Come to Dubai.'” (P.S. Who the HELL is responsible for deleting that Tiago Lemos We Are Blood remix from FB? Someone please re-upload it. P.P.S. “Stick Talk” > “I Serve the Base” for Tiago maybe. P.P.P.S. Can confirm Future cuts the music off and puts his thumb in the air after the “I ain’t got no manners…”-part when performing “Stick Talk.”)

Most of my friends rocked the Staples way heavier as far as Lakais went, but there was definitely a later cult around the Manchesters. SMLTalk has a requiem for maybe the last Lakai shoe to make an imprint in the skate footwear landscape.